The Consulting Babysitter
by Theswedishtrex
Summary: It's Valentine's Day, John and Mary has a date. Sherlock agreed to watch his five year old god daughter. And, being Sherlock Holmes, he goes a bit overboard. Oneshot, fluff.


Valentine's Day. Sherlock Holmes was, unsurprisingly, not planning on going out that evening. It was the one night of the year where he stayed inside at all costs. Flowers, chocolates and happy couples around every corner. It was adorable and it made him rather nauseated.

But, something was new this Valentine's Day. There was a bowl of colourful sweets on the living room table along with some DVDs. The fizzy drink was still in the fridge, there was a pizza carton on the kitchen table next to some plates and two tall glasses.

In some ways, Sherlock had a date that evening. He had agreed to watch his god-daughter as John and Mary did something romantic together. Alice Watson, now five years old, was turning out to be a rather intelligent little girl with a large knowledge murders. Larger than any other five year old probably had.

Sherlock was very fond of the little girl. There was something about her which pulled out the best in him, exactly like John did. He hadn't admitted this to anyone, but he was sure that both John and Mary could see it. It was clear by how eagerly he agreed to babysit and by how much he was fussing about this. Everything had to be perfect for that night.

He had rented several children's movies and had watched them all to make sure they would be suitable for a five year old. After thorough research, he had chosen five which he thought Alice would like. John had also been put through a rather long interrogation on what Alice liked and didn't like. In the end, John had eventually told Sherlock to calm down, that it was just for an evening and as long as they young girl got sweets, she'd be pleased.

But it wasn't that easy. It was never that easy. Everything had to be perfect for the child which he cared for and loved as much as he cared for and loved John.

After his extensive research, he ended up with cheese pizza as the main course, fruit fizzy drinks and lots of sweets. As a back-up plan, he had pop corn, crisps and a variety of biscuits .

* * *

At ten past five, ten minutes after their appointed time, Sherlock was sat in his arm chair, fingers drumming against the arm rests as he waited for either a text from John or for a knock on the door. At eleven past five, there was a knock on the door and Sherlock sprung up from his chair.

"Eleven minutes late." He informed as the door opened and the small family walked inside.

They were all blonde. Or, well, John had been blond before his hair turned grey. They all had blue eyes. John's hand was linked with Mary's. Sherlock didn't have time to notice anything more before Alice rushed up to him to hug his legs. She managed to do this, along with head butting Sherlock's more delicate body parts. A low huff escaped him and John let out a laugh.

"Sherwock!" The child cried out and reached her arms up for Sherlock to pick her up. He happily agreed to her wish and took her into his arms.

As he looked up again, both Mary and John were smiling rather widely. Sherlock cleared his throat as Alice rested her head on Sherlock's shoulder and played with his curls.

"You go out and have fun. I have everything under control." He promised.

"Yes, I can see that." John pointed out as he glanced around the flat. Sherlock had cleaned, he didn't want anything dangerous or gory around Alice.

"We won't be out too long." Mary said as she stroke over Alice's blonde curls before patting Sherlock's cheek.

"Don't worry about us." Sherlock insisted as the young girl was now squirming to get out off the detective's grip. He gently let her down onto the floor.

"Bye Daddy. Bye Mummy." Alice waved at her parents before throwing her small coat onto the floor.

"It seems like we're not wanted anymore." Mary laughed before she kissed John's cheek. Sherlock smiled at both of them as he placed his hands in his pockets.

"Go. Have fun." He said and waved at them.

With a last chuckle, the couple left.

* * *

"Alice, Alice, love, could we please do something which does not involving climbing all over my furniture?" Sherlock called out as he followed the little girl around the apartment, doing his best to keep her off the chairs and tables.

The dinner had gone by with flying colours. The pizza was a gigantic hit along with the fizzy drink. At least for Alice. Sherlock had never been a fan of sugary drinks and had switched to water after about half a glass. The pizza had been alright, though. But it might have been a bit of a mistake to fuel the young child. Sherlock had a theory that children seemed to have an unlimited amount of energy. Or, the detective was simply getting old.

It had barely gone one and a half hours since Mary and John left for their date, yet Sherlock was already tired. How could such a small human being have so much energy?

"No, Alice, no." Sherlock scooped the small child into his arms as she went off into the hallway, towards his bedroom. This was where he had stored all of his experiments and pictures of murder victims to keep them away from her.

"Let's not play in there." He told her with a small smile.

"Buuuuuut Sherwooooooock." Alice whined and buried her face in his neck. "Wanna play."

"We can play out here." Sherlock said as he placed her on the floor once they were in the living room again.

For a second, Sherlock turned his back to close the sliding door to the kitchen to keep the child away from there. He was beginning to feel rather impressed that John and Mary managed to do this every day of the week. How they weren't completely nervous wrecks by now was a surprise to him. But, he did understand why John was very eager whenever Sherlock invited him to a case.

"Sherwock?" Alice said as she gently tugged at Sherlock's shirt. She was holding a Mars bar. "For you."

With a slightly confused look on his face, Sherlock tilted his head and took the chocolate bar from her. Once he took it, she bounced back to the sofa and crawled into it, taking the bowl of sweets in her small lap.

"Do you want me to open it for you?" He asked softly as he sank down next to her.

Alice shook her head and smiled up at Sherlock with a toothy grin. She was missing a tooth, Sherlock recalled that John had mentioned something about the tragedy with the tooth which disappeared down the drain.

"For you."

A small oh escaped Sherlock as he looked down at the chocolate bar. She had gotten it for him. It suddenly felt like he had swallowed a large gulp of warm tea. It was very... Sweet, in lack of a better word.

"Thank you." He said and smiled at the girl as he placed the chocolate bar on the table. "I'm saving it for later."

After making sure that Alice was comfortable with a blanket and the sweets, Sherlock went to get the glass of fizzy drink for her along with a cup of coffee for himself. He couldn't have been gone for more than two minutes and when he returned into the living room, he found Alice by his bookshelf, looking at a book about unusual diseases.

"What's this?" She showed him a picture of a child which had a rather bad case of what looked like small pox.

"That is not for children." Sherlock said as he quickly snapped the book out of her hands. He could already hear the scolding he would get from John if he found out that Alice had seen pictures of weird diseases at his flat.

"Do you want to watch a film?" He said once he put the book back in its place.

Before he was really sure what had happened, Alice had gone over to the table and was looking through the suggestions. She looked through them one time then another time. Sherlock began to worry that he had picked up bad films which she wasn't interested in. As he started making up a plan B, she grabbed one and walked up to him.

"This one." It was Frozen. It was one of the films Sherlock had found most interesting, mainly because of the very beautiful animations.

"Ah, lovely. Just sit tight and I'll turn it on."

* * *

Mary and John had had a lovely night out. They went to _The Landmark, _the restaurant where John had proposed and where Sherlock had revealed himself. It was fun for them to have a night to just be grown ups.

Convinced that Sherlock had everything under control back at 221B, they allowed themselves to stay a bit longer than they had planned and have a bit more wine than what they really meant to.

In a very good mood, they used John's keys to get into 221B and walked up the stairs to Sherlock's flat.

"Sherlock?" John knocked the door. There was no answer and the couple raised their eyebrows at each other.

After knocking another time and once again without an answer, John gently tried the handle. The door swung up.

Inside was a sight which made John and Mary let out an aww at the exact same time. On the couch, Sherlock was sprawled out, one of his arms hanging off the sides. His eyes were closed and his was snoring silently. On his chest, little Alice was curled up, draped in a blanket, sleeping soundly. The menu music of Frozen was playing, since they had probably started the movie and then fallen asleep. It must have played all the way to the end and gone back to the menu.

As John pulled out his phone, Mary frowned.

"What are you doing?" She asked her husband as he unlocked the phone and opened up the camera app.

"Just taking a photograph."


End file.
